Katsuki is the brains of our class and the ultimate multitasker. In a span of three minutes, he could write an essay, spin three pens, do nail art, hug Hiroki, eat a cake, and solve a 12-sided rubriks cube. For some reason, everyone expects him to start spouting words of truth and wisdom as soon as he is woken up from his desert, and he does not disappoint.

"Goodness," he says, "why are we wasting time trying to figure out what everyone's greatest fear is, when we can go and check if there are records in Mrs. Sato's office?"

Everyone nods in unison. Of course, as usual, Katsuki is right.

"Come on, let's go," he says, and puts on contact lenses, ties his shoelaces, kisses Hiroki on the cheek, and downs two vitamins he had produced out of nowhere.

We head towards Mrs. Sato's office. As we walk, the others fill Shun and I in on what happened inside Katsuki's mind.

"We flew around for, like, ten years, and then we finally saw—" Ririka pauses dramatically, "—a holiday resort!"

"With pools, fountains, little huts, and a Michelin three-star restaurant," Yukiya adds.

I stare at Katsuki, who is calmly striding ahead leading the way. "And what's so scary about that?"

"The scorpions. They've taken over the resort," Hiroki explains. "Sand scorpions the size of a three-year-old."

"And then what happened?" Shun asks. I'm glad to see that he's making normal conversation with Hiroki now. Hiroki, being the kind of person he is, has forgiven Shun in seconds.

Perhaps he never even blamed him to begin with. Hiroki is just too full of love for that.

"And then Yukiya threw fireballs at the scorpions and killed so many of them," Hiroki laments, puppy eyes all melancholy.

"Yeah, and then Hiroki got sad, because he was so sure he could make friends with the scorpions, so he tried, and then in no time they were hanging out sunbathing on the sand," Ririka concludes. "Weirdo."

"You don't understand!" Hiroki huffs. "Scorpions are my buddies!"

"And where were you all the while?" I ask Katsuki.

"Sipping cocktail in the Michelin three-star restaurant, of course," he replies, and snorts at the look of utter shock on my face. "Just kidding, I was held captive by the scorpion king and his thousand of minions. They were... creepy, to say the least." He shudders, like it was an experience he would much rather forget.

"They were so nice to me though," Hiroki complains.

"Well, I suppose they couldn't be that bad, but I just can't stand the claws and the stingers and the way their bodies look," Katsuki explains, and I nod in sympathy because that's exactly how I feel about spiders.

I know they can't be that bad, but everything about their shape just rubs me the wrong way.

Actually I'd prefer they don't rub me at all, no matter what way. Thinking about being rubbed by a spider gives me the heebie-jeebies.

We finally arrive at Mrs. Sato's office. Katsuki doesn't seem at all troubled by the fact that bodies of teachers and our senpai are littering the school grounds, so I assume that the others have already explained to him what is going on when they were in his desert—Shun and I did take longer than we should have to unhook them, because we were so busy discussing my nonexistent crush and his actually existing one. That should have given the others enough time to tell Katsuki all about the current situation. Hopefully they did so while chilling in the pool and drinking champagne; that would be heavenly.

They've been through so much. They deserve to feel heavenly for a while.

"So, we should be looking for files on ourselves, files on our classmates, files on their fears..." Katsuki rambles on, already flipping through drawers and throwing irrelevant objects out. It's not like Mrs. Sato would miss them.

She's dead, after all.

I try not to think about it. I try not to look at the cute card she had set on her desk, drawn with crayons and complete with big red letters: "Mommy I love you".

Probably by Minami or Yuichi. Her kids. Maybe by both of them, together.

I touch the card gingerly, feeling its texture, feeling the warmth that almost seems to radiate out of it. Her children. They probably have no idea what happened to their mother yet. Shot through the stomach, three times.

Ririka interrupted my thoughts by cheering: "Found it!"

We all crowd over to look, and see Ririka triumphantly holding up several packets of chocolate chip cookies. She has located them from the top of the bookcase. The bookcase being tall and Ririka being small, she had to stand on a chair to reach the packets.

"That's not exactly what you should be looking for, but I'm kind of hungry," Katsuki admits and takes a cookie, while going on searching through the bookcase. He finally lays down a stack of blue files, spreading them out over Mrs. Sato's worn office couch.

"There. Natsumi, Izumi, Daisuke, Anna," he reads. "Hopefully they've got their fears recorded in here."

They have indeed. Within a quick scan we find that Daisuke is afraid of rats, Natsumi can't stand balloons, Izumi is scared of hair, and Anna's worst problem is failure.

"Failure?" I comment. "Her worst fear is failure?"

Typical Anna. She aces all her subjects and probably spends her every waking hour angsting about getting anything less than a 100% score. I hate to say it, but what a, well, trivial fear.

The others have different concerns.

"Hair?" Hiroki exclaims. "Why would Izumi be afraid of hair, when her own is so long?"

We have no idea. Izumi's hair reaches her butt; she sits on it a lot, no matter she wants it or not.

"Perhaps she's afraid of... uh... bad hair days?" Ririka suggests.

But what a, well, trivial fear.

"And balloons? Balloons? Seriously?" Katsuki says, stifling a laugh. He loves balloons.

"I guess these fears won't be too hard to deal with then." Yukiya sighs. "What a relief!"

"So whose mind should we hack first?" Katsuki asks, and everyone crowds over to conspire with him. I almost do too, but something feels off.

Shun is usually the one doing the leading, making everyone come over and listen with a single snap of his fingers. Not Katsuki. Katsuki doesn't even like leading; he's more of a supportive type, providing ideas and information the leader needs. Right now, he has taken over the job of leading, simply because Shun isn't doing it and no one else seems up for it.

I watch Shun standing there, by the bookshelf, quietly checking one file after another, and I scoot to his side.

"Looking for something?"

He gives a light nod of acknowledgement. "Trying to see if they've recorded anything about the darkness that they've, uh, installed in me."

"Any luck?"

"Nope. Hey, look, here's your file." He tosses it over to me.

I'd be lying if I say I weren't curious about what exactly had been recorded about me. Did the teachers even have anything to write about me? Did they even know anything about me? They couldn't see my worst fears—Mr.Yamada, or whoever it was, had said so.

They said that they couldn't see my worst fear, because I was an anomaly. They said that I was unable to believe, because I was an anomaly. They said they didn't understand why I was such a fluke, even though I had passed the entrance exam with flying colors.

I actually don't even remember what the entrance exam was, and how I passed with flying colors. I'm not that bad at studying, but I'm not exceptionally good either. Maybe I got lucky and guessed a couple of multiple-choice questions correctly?

I look down to see the answer right in my hands. My entrance exam paper is right here, in the file. Something is wrong, I think as I study it. Not the questions themselves. The questions aren't very difficult, not for a fifteen-year-old. Simple things that are taught in every junior high school. The answers I gave are not what's wrong either. I see my own handwriting of a year ago, childish, big, with rounded angles.

And then I realize where the problem is.

They haven't graded my test. The test is completely void of any markings.

How can they know that I passed with flying colors, when they didn't even grade the test?

"Guys," I say, and the little huddled crowd on the ground looks up at me. "Guys, are everyone's tests in their files?"

Katsuki flips open Daisuke's file. "It's here. Man, his handwriting is ugly." Hiroki chortles.

"And is it graded?" I demand.

Katsuki frowns. "Actually... it isn't."

"Natsumi's isn't either," Ririka chimes in.

We check the files of everyone in the class. No one's tests have been graded.

Ririka looks troubled, a cute little wrinkle in her brow.

"Then how did they know? Then how did they decide to choose us?"